Oh Yeah, And the Blackout Too

The RIAA is providing fodder for conspiracy theorists for a generation to come – you think the Blackout of ’03 was caused by a catastrophic chain of grid failures begun in northeast Ohio? Ha ha, duped again!:

The recording industry is providing its most detailed glimpse into some of the techniques it has employed as part of its campaign against online music swappers.

….According to the documents, the Recording Industry Association of America determined that the most effective way to stop this woman from pirating music was to shut down her power and the power of everyone in her neighborhood. Indeed, everyone in her state, neighborhing states, and even neighboring country, just for good measure. In so doing, the RIAA created the biggest power black out in North American history.

The documents further reveal that the RIAA, stung by civil-liberties backlashes after opening its massive detention facility in Mojave, CA last month, decided to try a different approach to its ongoing war on digital music piracy, by shutting down the Internet altogether. When it discovered it could not do that, it decided to shut down power to the personal computers of tens of millions of consumers, effectively denying them access to the Internet.

“We accept responsibility for this action,” said RIAA President Cary Sherman. [Denounce]

And darned effective it was, for a while anyway. But what do you do for an encore? The nefarious file sharers will switch to generators next time.